Final answer:
Luxury goods traded along the Silk Roads from 1200-1450 CE included silk textiles, spices, precious stones, and high-quality textiles. Other goods like wool, cloth, linen, purple dye, papyrus, and glass were also traded. These exchanges facilitated not only economic but also cultural interactions across regions.
Step-by-step explanation:
The luxury goods that were often traded along the Silk Roads between 1200-1450 CE included a wide array of items that were highly prized in various cultures. Among the most coveted were silk textiles, which featured in the mosaic at San Vitale, highlighting the demand from the Early Byzantine elite. In addition to silk, other luxury commodities such as spices, precious stones, and exquisite textiles were in high demand, fostering long-distance interconnected trade across multiple regions.
Other notable items that found their way along these trade routes included Chinese manufactured goods like lacquerware, silk floss, paper, porcelain, and iron tools. Different regions contributed their specialty goods as well, such as wool and cloth from Italy, linen from Egypt, and a variety of luxury items inclusive of purple dye, papyrus, and glass crafted in the territories of the former Roman Empire.
The trade along the Silk Roads was complex and dynamic, with goods such as raw silk, silver, and gold changing hands numerous times, gradually increasing in price as they traveled farther from their point of origin. This trade system was not only an economic exchange but also a conduit for cultural interactions, exemplified by the spread of ideas and religions like Buddhism from India to China.